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Monday, August 20, 2012

[Otome Game Review] Kuchihatenu Sakura no LP!

So I started playing Hakuouki SSL Doujin game and since nobody seems to have done a review of it yet I'm typing my progress as I play. Does that make this a “let’s play”? I have no clue. Anyway this post will cover the first 2 days,more will come later~ Cross posted to my blogspot, wordpress and tumblr.

The game starts with Yukimura Chizuru, a high school sophomore entering Hakuouki School in the Spring Semester. She randomly stands in the courtyard and wonders about her reasons to enter this school. Apparently she’s the only girl in the whole school at this moment, and because of that everyone around her, including her BFF Sen-chan was very against it as well as her family, but she decided to attend anyway. That hasn’t stopped Sen-chan’s attempts to lure her into transferring to Shimabara Ladies’ School though.

Her reason for attending is kinda lame though, she thinks the Cherry blossoms in this School campus are the most beautiful she’s ever seen. What? (I get it though, my mom pushed me into a college that had lots of trees in it a few years back) Also she has some hidden agenda too~

Right then conveniently timed strong blast of wind blows and she closes her eyes in surprise. In this moment, she feels someone is watching her with gentle eyes (STALKER???). She opens her eyes quietly to check whom that gaze belonged to.

The cherry petals fall gently, and the path in front is only illuminated by the soft sunlight. The only thing she can hear is the song of birds, she could no longer sense anyone’s gaze.

Since a long time before deciding to enroll in this school, she has been wondering why she feels so good whenever this cherry tree is in full bloom? She has a feeling that she knew this cherry tree from a long time ago, and there is someone waiting for her here. So she wanted to enter this School to confirm this feeling. Bleh that sounds like a poorly written shoujo manga. Even she admits that it might all be poppy haha

“I want to meet that person; I want to see his face. I want to talk to him. And I want to confirm.”

First Day

Cut to Chizuru’s room with a sleepy Chizuru grooming herself for school. Yesterday was the entrance ceremony, the normal classes start immediately from today. Noticing she’s running out of time she hurries out of the room and runs into her twin bro Kaoru in the living room, who comments on how noisy she is right from the morning. Being much more BAMF than her, he’s already ready for school by the time she’s stumbling into the room lol

Kaoru is a part of the Hakuouki School discipline committee, and there are rumors than he took over the committee within a day, and has already seized the real power in the School. But of course Chizuru doesn’t believe that shite and is just worried as a sister. Anyway Kaoru tells her he’s not dumb like her to be late on the second day of school and takes off. Chizuru who was dreaming of a happy kyoudai breakfast together after being separated for a long time is sad, but she pledges to make breakfast properly the next day.

She goes and meets up with Heisuke who’s complains she’s late at first, but then he’s like “Can’t be helped with the chicks” XD Then he grabs her hand and starts running. He’s glad to be going to school together with her after a long time, seems like he and Chizuru are Childhood osananajimis who are one year apart in school. It’s become natural for them to go together, but being in a different grade Heisuke is worried about her and tells her to inform him anyone tries to bully her so he can smack them all away flying XDXD Why you so cute

Chizuru’s obviously not going take him up on his offer~ Despite her “Minna Yasashi” claims Heisuke is worried about her being the only girl among so many men. Then he looks at her with a serious look and announces:

“Anyway! I’m definitely going to protect Chizuru!” He’s so cute fhgdjhfgbkjdf stop it I’m going after Hijikata first don’t tempt me you shouta Chizuru being an idiot isn’t touched that much and points out they are really going to be late if they keep talking here and they run, just narrowly escaping being late.

Choice 1

The first class mainly consisted of exchanging simple self-introductions and passes quickly. The next action determines the affection points for the bishie you’re aiming for, so see which action contains his chibi and select that in the next window ^_^ I am going for Hijikata so I chose Study.

Anyway after returning home Chizuru finds Kaoru isn’t home yet so she decides to make some food for them both. After coming back, seeing the huge amount of food Kaoru is all O_O and asks if there is a reason behind this colossal mountain of dishes. Chizuru replies that this is for celebrating the occasion of the two of them entering the Hakuouki school. Kaoru stays silent for a while as Chizuru ponders if she screwed up by cooking so much without knowing Kaoru’s tastes. She tells Karou that he doesn’t need to force himself to eat it, but he becomes amazingly Tsundere and says if his cute sister makes it he’d even eat poison.

Then in very small fonts (meaning he whispers it) he says that it’s him who should be celebrating (I’m not totally sure, pardon my lack of knowledge OTL), Chizuru’s pretty SHOKKU and when she asks him to repeat what he said, he’s like “I didn’t say anything :3 ”But as Chizuru keeps bugging him if it’s ok to celebrate he starts to become even more Tsundere and goes “Didn’t you hear me?”, so Moe~

Anyway after that Kaoru offers to do the dishes and tell hers to go back into her room and study. Being a troll he also teases her that he’ll be sad if she fails and lags behind him in class XD We learn that Chizuru has always been dumber than Kaoru who has much better grades.

When Chizuru is returning to her room, Kaoru stops her and asks if “she met someone”. Baka Chizu just replies “Just Heisuke in the morning”. Kaoru goes deep in thought, then dismisses the topic saying he was just talking to himself and not to mind him. I think I smell something fishy *sniff* She just accepts his word and goes to sleep, but Kaoru's words keep repeating in her mind. She wonders if Kaoru was talking about the person she is looking for. But she definitely did not tell Kaoru about this.

As a restless Chizuru tries to open the door of her room, she hears Kaoru's voice from the living room. Kaoru is pretty pissed and grumbling about how unfair it is that she had forgotten him but remembers “them”. Chizuru is surprised as she hears him lament that “Even though I am hurting so much”; she had never heard a sad voice from Kaoru. However even though she wants to know why he’s suffering, she admits that she doesn’t have to guts to approach him at this moment.

Back in her room, Chizuru reflects on the fact that she had hoped the distance between her and Kaoru will lessen as they start living together and going to the same school, but there doesn’t seem to be any progress. She doesn’t know anyone other than Kaoru and Heisuke in the while school so she cannot even consult anyone. She wonders if she’d end up saying yes to Sen if she offered to transfer at this moment.

Second Day

Next day, when going to school together, Heisuke notes that her eyes are red. Chizuru bullshits that she was up late, and Heisuke is skeptical as unlike him who stays up late playing games Chizuru isn’t the type to lose her sleep. He says that even though it might not mean much coming from him, she should take care of her body and get enough sleep.

Choice 2---->Study

After school, on the rooftop, Chizuru is being gloomy as she doesn’t have any friends in the classroom and neither Kaoru nor Heisuke are in her class and has to eat lunch alone (apparently that’s a big issue?). When she gets up to go back home, Okita and Saito enter the roof arguing. I donno why but their sprites seem to have some sort of torso to hand length mismatch? I hope it’s just the blazers’ fault

Saito has Okita’s cellphone because it was confiscated and refuses to return. Okita’s all “Y U ACT LIKE A MACHINE, it’s after school already” (ノಠ益ಠ) Saito calmly replies that he didn’t say he’d never return it, but he needs to check for “illegal” contents first.Okita appeals invasion of privacy, but right then Saito notices baka Chizu. When both of them notice her, Okita says “It’s her, right?” and Saito says “I won’t mistake her”. Come on; please don’t be like a stereotypical Shoujo manga plot where stupid heroine forgets her osananajimis for no reason. Tables will flip if that is the case…

When they try to approach Chizuru, she starts acting like a trapped squirrel for no reason and starts vehemently apologizing for intruding, saying stupid stuff like “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything!” You pea-brain they weren’t discussing a drug deal or something of that sort you know. Why such an freak out? （ಠ_ಠ）Saito explains to her that she’s misunderstanding, they didn’t call out to her because they were angry about her eavesdropping. Okita comments that “She’s careless as usual”, prompting Chizuru to ask “As usual? Have we met before?”

Both guys go (lll￣□￣) and Saito replies with a little stonier face than his usual one that nope, this is the first time they’ve met. He introduces them both, they’re both 2nd years in Hakuouki School. When she’s checking out the hot men Okita quips whether she has a habit of always staring at people’s faces like this. Chizuru gets embarrassed and sputters that she feels like she’s met some people who resemble them.

Okita replies in his usual teasing way that he wants to meet their look-alikes, and Saito helpfully (?) supplies the knowledge that people see their doppelgangers when their time of death is near. Okita obviously didn’t want that much info lol Chizuru tries to drop the subject saying maybe it was her mistake. Next Okita asks if it’s ok for a girl to be alone in school when it is getting dark. When Chizuru points out she was planning to return anyway, he offers to walk her to her doorstep. Saito is slightly embarrassed (MOE!(*´д｀*)) and wonders if she’d be troubled by this, which Chizuru protests to. Okita nudges Saito for his cellphone, and Saito exasperatedly returns it with a warning to not repeat this in the future. Okita mischievously replies that he’ll just be careful to not get caught then. Saito=ಠ_ಠ

Chizuru notes that Okita doesn’t seem to reflect on this incident at all, and Saito also appears to be accustomed to his trolling. Observing this peculiar bro-interaction, Chizuru wonders why she is having so much fun even though she has just met them. Okita calls out to the spaced out Chizuru and reminds her of their offer to walk her home. At her concern that they would have to take a detour, Okita boasts that the both of them are strong men so it’s fine. He gives some odd comment about how they’ll beat any weird guy that tries to approach her bloody (I didn’t understand the exact meaning I’m sorry D: ). Saito nods to that, and the happy threesome go back together.

Back home, Chizuru thanks them for escorting her, and Saito assures her that their houses are close to this place anyway. Okita offers to pick her up in the morning, but Chizuru rejects saying she already goes to school with someone. Okita asks whether it’s a student from the same school, and with Chizuru’s affirmative answer goes slightly yandere as he goes “IS IT A GUY?” (ﾉಥ益ಥ）

When Chizuru says yes, he disregards everything and says he’s gonna come pick her up anyway lol Saito points out that he’s one of the offenders when it comes to coming late as he tends to oversleep. Okita agrees that he has a point, then cheerily asks Chizuru whether she’d agree to being late http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftogether with him. Okita you lovable TROLL you ♡ For the first time in the game Chizuru goes “WTF” at how he’s taking being late for granted XD Saito puts on his best stone face and flat out rejects since one habitual offender is enough. Okita claims to be severely disappointed at (but he doesn’t look it at all XD) the rejection of his idea, then the two of them say their goodbyes to Chizuru.

When alone, Chizuru thinks back on their words “See you tomorrow”. She ponders how they made a promise to meet again even though they’re from different class and year, and feels that the words were like magic that soothed her heart.

3 comments:

Thanks for posting about this game! I became a Hakuouki fan after playing the PSP English version of Hakuouki... before that, I didn't have a clue about the whole Hakuouki franchise, lol. Hakuouki is what started my otome game obsession. :)